I found this recipe on a local news website the other day and thought it looked great! It’s a “Mr. Food” recipe. I had a roast in the freezer that I had planned to do something with, and this looked so good I had to try it.

Place bell pepper strips and onions in a 6-quart slow cooker. Place roast over vegetables. Place mushrooms over roast then pour spaghetti sauce and water over top.

Add garlic, basil, salt, and pepper. Stir gently, cover, and cook on low setting for 6-8 hours, or until meat is fork-tender.

Here are the changes I made to suit our family’s taste:
I sliced the peppers a little thicker than he recommended, because I pulled them out of the sauce before serving. Matt ate some of them, but I don’t love to just eat strips of pepper like that, so I made them big enough to remove easily.

I served the sauce over brown rice. The sauce tends to separate very quickly when taken out of the crock pot; next time I think I’ll omit the water, because after the meat starts cooking and produces so much juice, there’s really no need for extra water. Just pour some of the sauce down the bottom part of the crock before cooking to prevent weird things from happening to your vegetables.

There was a little more prep involved in this than I was thinking – give yourself 20 minutes to get veggies cut, the meat trimmed, etc. Or 30 if you’re me, and in the middle of preparation you have to stop to field questions from your 6-year-old about why a chipmunk just crawled into a hole in the corner of the garage. I so wish I was kidding.

Overall, we thought this was really good. Next time I might try it with chicken, which will require less cooking time.